Steam is a service for buying and playing online games that Valve launched a decade ago. It’s now a major force in the game industry with a library of more than 3,000 games and applications for PCs, Macs and Linux machines.

Steam is also the core of Valve’s hardware challenge to the upcoming Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles,

To continue its momentum, Valve is hosting a conference for Steam developers in Seattle in January and preparing for a beta test of Steam Machines this fall before their commercial release in 2014.

Meanwhile Steam’s size is approaching the installed base of the current Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, both of which have online networks to deliver content and play multiplayer games.

Microsoft reported in September that its Xbox Live service had 48 million subscribers.

Brier Dudley offers a critical look at technology and business issues affecting the Northwest. Send tips or comments to bdudley@seattletimes.com. His column runs Monday, and his commentary appears here all week.